Gulen Schools Worldwide

With the growth of Gulen schools worldwide. We had requests from around the world to start a second blog on the Gulen Turkish Schools worldwide. From Mexico to Iraq, and Africa to Afghanistan we will post the news stories and as usual amuse you at the same time. To contrast and compare we invite you to http://www.gulencharterschoolsUSA.blogspot.com http://www.charterschoolwatchdog.com http://www.charterschoolscandals.blogspot.com

Gulen Schools Worldwide

Restore the Ottoman Caliphate. Disclaimer: if some videos are down this is the result of Gulen censorship which filed a fake copyright infringement to UTUBE.

Sunday, February 11, 2018

Gulen members like to refer to key Gulen members as "Kidnappings" "Deportations" but the truth is, the host countries where they are living and robbing from are arresting them, and in a few cases the Gulenists are fleeing and missing.
This blog has documented these odd disappearances, being a member of Gulen Movement is a casualty. The smart members of Hizmet are fleeing with as much cash as they can, before they are arrested in their host country. There is more that we don't know this is just the tip of the icebergLatest Article from Hizmet paper:

An unexpected flurry of activity took place inside a house in Lahore’s Wapda Town on September 27, 2017. At the unearthly hour of 2:25 am, about 12 men in plain clothes barged in, got hold of the people living inside, covered their heads, bundled them into a car and sped away. Those abducted included Mesut Kacmaz, a Turkish citizen living and working in Pakistan as a director at the PakTurk International Schools and Colleges, his wife and two children.

When his fellow director Orhan Agyun got the news, he immediately contacted his friends in the neighbourhood. Soon he filed a petition at the Lahore High Court for the recovery of the Kacmaz family through AGHS Law Associates, a Lahore-based firm headed by Asma Jahangir that specialises in human rights cases. The petition stated that those taken away feared being deported to Turkey where they might face imprisonment and persecution. It also said that the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) had duly registered Kacmaz and his family as asylum seekers who, after leaving Pakistan, did not want to go back to Turkey but to a destination where they could be safe. The registration had qualified them, under various earlier court orders, to stay in Pakistan till October 2017, the petition added.

On October 6, the court ordered that the family could not be deported. Justice Shams Mehmood Mirza, who heard the petition, told the federal interior ministry to put their names on the Exit Control List and find out who had abducted them. On October 14, Kacmaz’s colleagues informed AGHS Law Associates that he and his family had already reached Turkey. He is lodged in a jail there along with his wife, says Usama Malik, a lawyer representing him and his family. Their children are staying with their grandparents, he says.

Justice Mirza was furious when he was informed about it. On October 17, he sought an explanation from the interior ministry as to how Kacmaz and his family had been made to leave Pakistan in spite of his orders against their deportation. The ministry told the judge that it had no record of their departure from airports in Lahore and Islamabad.

Asim Khan Qaimkhani, additional director of immigration at Jinnah International Airport, Karachi, also verifies that no Turkish family was forcibly deported from Karachi either. Otherwise, he says, his department would have been notified. “If they left, they left willingly.”

The mystery of the family’s departure deepened as reports started circulating that Turkish police came to Pakistan and took them back on a chartered plane. When the court came to know about these reports, it ordered the Pakistan Civil Aviation Authority to find out when and from where the chartered plane had flown them out of Pakistan. The authority later said it had no knowledge or record of the arrival and departure of such a plane.

Four middle-aged Turkish men sit in a newspaper office in Lahore in the middle of December 2017. They are visibly tired and worried — and reluctant to divulge their names. Two of them have received 10-year visas for the United States and have plans to leave Pakistan soon. The other two – and 12 more people like them – cannot even apply for a foreign visa since their passports have expired and there is no way that they can get them renewed by Turkish authorities.

They will have to find a way to stay in Pakistan until their applications for asylum to countries in Europe or North America are accepted. They are willing to try any options to get out of Pakistan — whether it is through the United Nations or through human smugglers. “That is how distressed we are,” says one of them. They are also bitter about how they are being treated. “The [previous] president of Turkey – Abdullah GÜL – visited our schools. Now we are considered terrorists,” says another.

He finds it worrisome that no voices have been raised by political parties in Pakistan over their mistreatment, even when they see Pakistan as their second home. One elaborates, “One of my kids was born in Quetta and the other in Lahore. They are Pakistani you can say. My kids ask me, ‘Why are Pakistanis … forcing us to leave our home?’” All four let out nervous laughter when asked if they expect any change in the attitude of the Pakistani government towards them. “The Turkish government has given so much to Pakistan. I don’t think politicians, even the opposition, would risk that. Why would they care about a few teachers?”

Trouble for the PakTurk schools and colleges and their Turkish teachers and managerial staff started after an alleged coup attempt against Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan failed in July 2016. The coup was said to be backed and orchestrated by Fethullah Gülen, a Turkish preacher living in the United States where he heads a foundation called Hizmet (service). It owns and operates media organisations, educational institutions and non-profit associations both in Turkey and among Turkish migrants in other countries. Turkish authorities in Ankara allege that the PakTurk International Schools and Colleges are also a part of Gülen’s network. They, therefore, wanted Pakistani authorities to close down these educational institutions and deport their Turkish staff.

Around 110 Turkish teachers, residing in Pakistan with their families, consequently received no positive response from Pakistani authorities on their annual visa renewal applications, says Agyun. For the previous 21 years – since 1995 when PakTurk International schools and colleges started operating in Pakistan – they have been getting their visas renewed without much hassle.

The situation became even worse when Erdogan arrived in Islamabad on an official visit on November 16, 2016. The same day, the interior ministry told all Turks working with the PakTurk educational network to leave Pakistan within three days.

To preempt any disruption in academic activities, Agyun and his senior colleagues in the management took some immediate measures. They started replacing Turkish teachers with Pakistani ones and posted an announcement on the website of their organisation: “We feel it imperative to clarify that the PakTurk International Schools and Colleges in Pakistan are a philanthropic and non-political endeavor in the country organised and established for human development, inter alia, in the field of education for the benefit of all Pakistanis … We are deeply concerned by allegations made by a certain section in the social media trying to connect the PakTurk International Schools and Colleges in Pakistan with Mr. Fethullah Gülen or the political movement ascribed to him in wake of the recent unfortunate and reprehensible events in Turkey. We do unequivocally clarify that the PakTurk International Schools and Colleges in Pakistan have no affiliation or connection with any political individual or any movement or organisation, whether political, religious or denominational, nor do we have a financial relationship with any movement.”

Their third step was to move courts to prevent deportations. While the Islamabad High Court dismissed their petition and instead told them to approach the interior ministry for an extension of their visas, the Peshawar High Court halted the deportations through an order on November 23, 2016. Another positive development for them was a verdict by the Islamabad High Court in March 2017 that declared that the state had made no decision to take over educational institutions owned and operated by their organisation.

Turks working with the PakTurk International Schools and Colleges, in the meanwhile, were flocking to the offices of the UNHCR in Islamabad. Though Pakistan is not a signatory to the international conventions on refugees and asylum seekers, according to lawyer Malik, it is obliged under international law to refrain from deporting any foreigners living here if they have already registered as asylum seekers with the United Nations.

This certainly did not help Kacmaz and his family.

The main campus for boys run by the PakTurk International Schools and Colleges in Lahore is situated on Lahore’s Raiwind Road. Built over a decade ago, it has a state-of-the-art building with an indoor Futsal court and an auditorium that can accommodate 500 students. In 2006, General Pervez Musharraf conferred a civilian award on the PakTurk International Schools and Colleges, recognising their services to Pakistan.

One early morning in December 2017, the school’s principal, Asif Raja, is running through meetings while tending to a cell phone that is constantly ringing. He is overseeing preparations for a math competition involving over 11,000 students from across Pakistan. “What these [Turkish] teachers brought [here] was quality education and international exposure. They had taught in various countries and were role models for students,” he says. “[Their deportation order] was really shocking for us,” he adds. “We never saw anything controversial or suspicious [about them].”

Local teachers and managers are running the campus now, as they do at all 28 campuses of the PakTurk educational network located in Islamabad, Lahore, Quetta, Peshawar, Khairpur, Multan, Jamshoro, Hyderabad and Rawalpindi. About 12,000 students are enrolled at these institutions.

At one of them, in Karachi’s Gulistan-e-Jauhar area, Haseebullah Jogi is conversing in Turkish over the phone in the principal’s office on a mid-December day. A Turkish flag stands to his right and a Pakistani one to his left, along with framed photos, hanging side by side, of Muhammad Ali Jinnah and Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. The school’s official motto – “We believe that what is taught with love lasts forever” – is visible everywhere: on promotional brochures, newsletters and other merchandise.

Jogi took over as principal not too long ago. As part of the plan to replace the Turkish staff with locals, he was transferred here in August 2016 from the Khairpur campus where he was working as vice principal. He himself is a 2009 graduate of the PakTurk International Schools and Colleges and has studied physics at Istanbul University on a scholarship. “Nowhere in our school system are we teaching about Fethullah Gülen. He has no connection [to] our schools,” says Jogi.

By early October 2017, most Turkish teachers had left Pakistan. Those who could not were worried, according to Jogi, “because going back [to Turkey] meant they would be imprisoned”. And once in Turkey, they would also find it impossible to apply for asylum elsewhere, explains a human rights lawyer.

In order to avoid being deported, they had moved the Sindh High Court which, on October 3, extended its earlier injunction against their deportation to October 10. It was later extended again to December 5.

Only a couple of families now live in Karachi – and a few more in other cities – but they are also planning to leave. They have little choice, according to Jogi. “They have lost their livelihood in Pakistan … because their visas have expired.”

Thursday, January 18, 2018

Turkey has continued to pile up pressure on countries around the world to shut down or hand over control of schools linked to Fethullah Terrorist Organisation (FETO). The US-based 76-year-old cleric, Fethullah Gulen was accused of masterminding the July 2016 coup attempt in Turkey that left 250 people dead and 2,200 injured. Also, the influential cleric runs FETO and has built a financial empire in Turkey that included banks, media, construction companies and schools. He is reported to have 3 million to 6 million followers in Turkey, including high-ranking government and military officials. The schools began expanding internationally in 1993, and at one point there were Gulen-linked schools, cultural centers or language programs in more than 100 countries. In the United States, it’s the largest group of so-called charter schools, which receive tax funds. It has about 140 schools in 28 states, taking in more than $2.1 billion from taxpayers. In Africa, FETO has a lot of schools and other investments worth billions US dollars. In Nigeria, a document released by the Turkish embassy, listed the indicted schools and institutions as Surat Educational Limited, Abuja; Nigerian-Turkish International School, in Abuja, Kaduna, Kano, Yobe, Ogun and Lagos; and the Nigerian-Turkish Nile University, Abuja. Others, according to the embassy, are The Association of Businessmen and Investors of Nigeria and Turkey/Abinat, Abuja and Lagos; Ufuk Dialogue Foundation, Abuja; Nigerian-Turkish Nizamiye Hospital, Abuja; and Vefa Travel Agency, Abuja.

Recently, President of Turkey, Recep Erdogan, advised parents in Nigeria and other countries in Africa to withdraw their children from Turkish-run schools across the continent because the schools are run by those he described as terrorists. In an exclusive interview with AllAfrica.com prior to his three-country official visit to Sudan, Chad and Tunisia, Mr. Erdogan said the schools are run by an organisation that uses education as a façade to hide their real intent. According to him, the schools are linked to United States based Cleric, Fethullah Gulen, a former ally of Mr Erdogan turn arch-rival. Erdogan said “Without any further ado, I will like to mention something. Whether your nephews, nieces and your children, do not send them to either one of these network schools. “Education is just a disguise for the terrorists working for these organisations, even religion is a disguise for the Fethullahists. In the Quran, Allah condemned those who are using prayers as disguised as they will never be conscientious to the practice of prayer that is why we would remain alert. We would never be manipulated. The coup plotters are the Fethullahists. “They have all been identified and some of them have been sentenced to aggravated life imprisonment. These Fethullahists came to kill me and my family members but Allah protected us and in a matter of minutes we were saved from their bombs, their attacks but two of my security guarded were killed… there are 29 martyrs around the presidential complex which was attacked that night as well. “We are warning all our brothers in Africa not to be deceived because the Fethullahists have great sums of money out of their actions. In 1999, the Chief terrorist, fled to the United States to live in Pennsylvania. We have demanded his extradition immediately. “The Turkish government has established an education foundation to take control of the schools linked with Mr. Gulen. Many African countries, including Nigeria have, however, turned down Mr. Erdogan’s requests to either take control or close schools linked to Mr Gulen. “Soon after the attempted coup, the Turkish Ambassador to Nigeria, Hakan Cakil, called on the Nigerian government to close 17 Turkish schools. His request was however turned down by the government.” However, a Turkish state-run education foundation has taken over control of schools in Chad that once belonged to FETO. Turkey’s Maarif Foundation (TMF) took over the institutions in line with a protocol signed between the Turkish and Chadian governments recently. Among these institutions are a kindergarten, a primary school, two secondary schools, two high schools, and a dormitory. The institutions will continue operating with administrators and teachers sent by Maarif. President Erdogan said in Ankara that Turkey was determined to clear Africa of FETO, saying that FETO fooled people through “sham” education and aid services. The Maarif Foundation has recently assumed control of numerous schools previously run by FETO around the world, including 32 in Africa, according to Turkey’s National Education Ministry. Also, TMF is working round the clock to be in charge of schools once run by FETO in Nigeria, as it visited the country last year to establish its presence. A member of the Board of Trustees of the Turkish Maarif Foundation and Special Adviser to Turkish Prime Minister, Prof. Cahit Bagci, said that TMF is a not-for-profit public body constitutionally authorized to run schools outside Turkey, adding that their visit was to ensure robust relations on education with Nigeria. Meanwhile, irate President Erdogan said that Turkey would not extradite any suspects to the United States if Washington doesn’t hand over Fethullah Gulen, who allegedly orchestrated a failed 2016 military coup. Ankara accuses U.S.-based Turkish cleric Fethullah Gulen of masterminding the putsch and has repeatedly asked Washington for his extradition. But US officials have said courts require sufficient evidence to extradite the elderly cleric, who has denied any involvement in the coup. “We have given the United States 12 terrorists so far, but they have not given us back the one we want. They made up excuses from thin air,” Erdogan told local administrators at a conference in his presidential palace in Ankara. “If you’re not giving him [Gulen] to us, then excuse us, but from now on whenever you ask us for another terrorist, as long as I am in office, you will not get them,” he said. Gulen, 76, lives in rural Pennsylvania. The influential Sunni Muslim cleric fled Turkey for the U.S. in 1999 and was subsequently granted permanent resident status. Turkey is the biggest Muslim majority country in NATO and an important U.S. ally in the Middle East. But Ankara and Washington have been at loggerheads over a wide range of issues in recent months, including a U.S. alliance with Kurdish fighters in Syria and the conviction of a Turkish bank executive in a U.S. sanctions-busting case that included testimony of corruption by senior Turkish officials.

Chad's Education Minister Ahmad Khazali Acyl speaks during the ceremony to hand over Gülenist schools in Chad to Turkey Maarif Foundation in N'Djamena, Chad, Dec. 25, 2017. (AA Photo)
A Turkish state-run education foundation has taken over schools in Chad that once belonged to the Gülenist Terror Group (FETÖ), the group behind last year's defeated coup in Turkey, ahead of an official visit by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
Turkey's Maarif Foundation took over the institutions in line with a protocol signed between the Turkish and Chadian governments on Sunday. Among these institutions are a kindergarten, a primary school, two secondary schools, two high schools, and a dormitory.
The institutions will continue operating with administrators and teachers sent by Maarif.
In a speech, Turkey's Ambassador to Chad Erdal Sabri Ergen thanked the heads of Maarif. "These schools will greatly contribute to Chad's education system," he said
Speaking to Anadolu Agency, Chad's Education Minister Ahmad Khazali Acyl said that the school transfer was an important step in relations between the two counties.
On Sunday, Erdoğan said in Ankara ahead of his three-day visit to Sudan, Chad, and Tunisia that Turkey was determined to clear Africa of FETÖ, the group behind last year's defeated coup in Turkey.
Saying that FETÖ fooled people through "sham" education and aid services, Erdoğan added: "Many African countries, immediately after the coup attempt, deported FETÖ members and transferred the schools run by the group to our Maarif Foundation."
The Maarif Foundation has recently assumed control of numerous schools previously run by FETÖ around the world, including 32 in Africa, according to Turkey's National Education Ministry.
FETÖ and its U.S.-based leader Fetullah Gülen orchestrated the defeated coup attempt of July 15, 2016, which left 250 people martyred and nearly 2,200 injured.

President of Turkey, Recep Erdogan, has advised parents in Nigeria and other countries in Africa to withdraw their children from Turkish-run schools across the continent because the schools are run by those he described as terrorists.

In an exclusive interview with AllAfrica.com before a three-country official visit to Sudan, Chad and Tunisia this week, Mr. Erdogan said the schools are run by an organisation that uses education as a façade to hide their real intent.

According to him, the schools are linked to United States based Cleric, Fethullah Gulen, a former ally of Mr Erdogan turn arch-rival.

http://www.guleninvestigation.com

Erdogan said “Without any further ado, I will like to mention something. Whether your nephews, nieces and your children, do not send them to either one of these network schools.

“Education is just a disguise for the terrorists working for these organisations, even religion is a disguise for the Fethullahists. In the Quran, Allah condemned those who are using prayers as disguised as they will never be conscientious to the practice of prayer that is why we would remain alert. We would never be manipulated. The coup plotters are the Fethullahists.

“They have all been identified and some of them have been sentenced to aggravated life imprisonment. These Fethullahists came to kill me and my family members but Allah protected us and in a matter of minutes we were saved from their bombs, their attacks but two of my security guarded were killed… there are 29 martyrs around the presidential complex which was attacked that night as well.

“We are warning all our brothers in Africa not to be deceived because the Fethullahists have great sums of money out of their actions. In 1999, the Chief terrorist, fled to the United States to live in Pennsylvania. We have demanded his extradition immediately.

“The Turkish government has established an education foundation to take control of the schools linked with Mr. Gulen. Many African countries, including Nigeria have, however, turned down Mr. Erdogan’s requests to either take control or close schools linked to Mr Gulen.

“Soon after the attempted coup, the Turkish Ambassador to Nigeria, Hakan Cakil, called on the Nigerian government to close 17 Turkish schools. His request was however turned down by the government.”

Friday, December 8, 2017

One Saturday evening last January, hundreds of children and parents gathered in the schoolyard of Collège Bosphore in Senegal’s capital, bouncing to the sounds of a hip-hop concert being broadcast on national TV. Despite the festive mood of the crowd, they weren’t celebrating. They were protesting the influence of a political leader thousands of miles away—Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

‘“We are independent, we will not accept to be under a foreign dictatorship,” the concert’s host, Senegalese singer Fou Malade, told the crowd.

For months, Erdogan had been pressuring Dakar to close schools like Collège Bosphore, which are linked to Hizmet, a moderate Islamist religious movement that has grown since the 1960s out of the teachings of Turkish Islamic cleric Fethullah Gulen. Also known as the Gulen movement, Hizmet has established branches and schools all around the world, including Senegal. Fou Malade’s concert protested Dakar’s recent decision to hand over the management of the schools to the Maarif Foundation, an umbrella organization created by the Turkish government in June 2016 ostensibly to oversee Turkish Islamic education abroad. Since Erdogan’s political split with Gulen a few years ago, Maarif has taken over several Hizmet-affiliated schools across the world, while others were simply closed.

In January, students, parents, and teachers gathered in Collège Bosphore’s schoolyard for a concert to ask President Macky Sall not to change the management of Yavuz Selim. The slogan: “Don’t touch my school.”(Stéphanie Fillion)

Nine months after the concert, Dakar appears to have caved. Senegal’s Hizmet-affiliated schools were shut down in October, leaving 500 staff and 3,000 students in the dust. “Turkey has asked for more than three years to close the schools for reasons of instability and the alleged activities of the [Gulen] movement,” Senegal’s president Macky Sall told a local newspaper in October. “Senegal initially refused, and we asked our Turkish partner to do their part. But then, there was a coup.”

Caught in the middle

The first Hizmet-affiliated school opened in Senegal in 1998 with only eight students. Eight others followed, forming the private school network Yavuz Selim (link in French.) The battle over the control of the schools is a part of a much larger struggle between Erdogan, president of Turkey since 2014 and Gulen, who has been in self-imposed exile in the US since 1999.

Erdogan accuses Gulen’s followers of being behind an attempted coup d’état in July 2016—a charge which Gulen has denied—and calls Gulen’s movement FETÖ, for “Gulenist Terror Group.” After the coup, Erdogan enacted a large purge against the movement, dismissing or suspending over 100,000 public officials and civil servants. He labelled 28,000 teachers alleged Gulen supporters and terrorists, according to Human Rights Watch, and accused affiliated schools of radicalizing students.

The preacher and politician were one-time allies. Over time, the Gulen movement has come to represent a major counter-power to Erdogan’s control of Turkey. With about 1,500 schools affiliated with the movement in 170 countries, this struggle over the future of power and religion in Turkey has repercussions across the world. And it threatens the education of an estimated 15, 000 students in at least 30 countries in Africa.

Yavuz Selim

Nineteen-year-old Betty Kane graduated last year from Collège Sultan, an all-girls school that is part of Senegal’s Yavuz Selim network. She is from Kaolack, 125 miles from Dakar, and attended the boarding school on a scholarship given to her for her good grades. “My mother wanted me to come here because it has good results and is one of the best schools in Senegal,” Kane said.

The closure of Yavuz Selim schools isn’t just a blow for its students, but also for the state of education in Senegal, a country where about one-third of children remain out of school, and the literacy rate hovers at 57.7%. The schools had a reputation for excellence, ranking for years among Senegal’s best. Students got top scores in national exams, and went on to study at international universities, often in Turkey, until the failed coup.

Most students at Yavuz Selim are from wealthy Senegalese families and have been transferred to other private schools in the wake of the closure. Others are scrambling to find places to attend. Out of 3,000 students in the Yavuz Selim network, about 300 were on scholarships—at 80,000 CFA ($130) a month for elementary school, and 125,000 CFA ($204) a month for high school, the schools were among the most expensive in the country. “We’re still trying to find a solution for them,” said Naffissatou Cissé, a school administrator at Collège Bosphore.

Yavuz Selim’s schools were known to be quite moderate, and Gulen’s teachings were not part of the curriculum (Senegal’s population is predominantly Muslim, but religious classes are not required by the national curriculum.) Female students were not required to cover themselves and many did not wear headscarves. The Hizmet schools provided bilingual education in French and English, with mandatory Turkish classes.